Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a new era of computing where interacting with computers is becoming more natural and intuitive. Technology is evolving quickly leading to significant impacts, especially with systems starting to reason in more advanced ways. We’re taking a leadership role in the telecommunications sector by adopting a responsible and efficient approach in three key areas: customer experience, smarter networks, and internal operational efficiency. This approach aims to increase value across all our lines of business and support app development, while ensuring that AI is accessible and beneficial to all.
How AI is driving transformation
The exponential growth of AI is profoundly transforming many industries, and the telecommunications sector is no exception. Our customers expect greater personalization and performance, so AI integration has become essential to stay competitive. At Orange, we’re working on tools that add tangible value, while respecting our ethical and environmental commitments because we firmly believe that AI must be used responsibly, and that any technological transformation must put people first.
Optimizing AI for efficient networks and improved customer experience
AI integration optimizes our performance through a reliable and secure network. It also enables more efficient and meaningful interactions with customers, while increasing data protection and compliance with regulations.
We focus on three key areas of AI application:
- Enhanced customer experience: We use AI to better understand our customers’ needs and respond with personalized offers. A key aspect of this strategy is customer value management. For example, contact centers use AI-based tools to provide faster and accurate responses, improving customer satisfaction. To date, AI has automated 30% of responses to simple requests, allowing agents to focus on more complex calls.
- Smarter grids : In networking, AI plays a fundamental role to improve planning, operations, and field services. By analyzing large volumes of data from network equipment, it can predict failures and assign technicians efficiently. AI also helps improve network reliability, quickly identifying the root causes of problems, essential for maintaining quality service.
Everything starts with robust infrastructure and quality data, which is why we’re investing in advanced cloud platforms and analytics, including real-time data processing, machine learning, and up-to-date and accessible data management systems.
- Employee empowerment: We’re investing in training, using internal and external resources, to adapt our culture and teach employees how to adopt and maximize the benefits AI can bring to their roles. We’ve also rolled out an in-house GenAI tool, Dinootoo, to 50,000 Group employees.This tool is based on several major generative AI language models (LLMs), including those from OpenAI (GPT-x and DALL-E), Google (Gemini), Anthropic (Claude), Mistral and Meta (LLaMA). This AI toolbox guarantees the security of users' personal data and the protection of corporate data, and provides access to a range of services such as chat, code and document analysis, meeting synthesis and code and image generation.
Our employees are also testing Copilot within Microsoft 365 suite to identify the most promising use cases and any potential deployment issues.
Measuring impact by strengthening our ethical commitments
To ensure our AI initiatives create value, we use the Data Value Measurement (DVM) methodology to assess the economic and environmental impact of each project on a quarterly basis.
We use AI to meet environmental and societal challenges, working within our net zero carbon 2040 target, by reducing the energy consumption of our networks and datacenters, despite the exponential increase in usage. We’re also testing various AI tools to reduce our network impacts through use cases such as analyzing the energy consumption of cellular base stations to detect and correct abnormal energy use.
When it comes to AI ethics, we have established an independent ethics council and employ 800 AI ethics experts across our operating countries. Ethics are key in guiding our strategic decisions, whether in how we use AI or how we choose our tech partners.
Investing for the future: a sustainable vision
AI will remain a strategic focus to ensure any transformation is a positive transformation, not only for the company, but for society at large.
We continue to explore the capabilities of GenAI to personalize customer interactions, improve our operational efficiency, and make our networks smarter.
Orange Business, for example, supports companies in their transformation by helping them make the most of AI and data through innovative services in the field of customer experience, business process optimization, consulting, and cybersecurity solutions.
We take a broad view of needs, including any unique cultural, linguistic, or environmental requirements from across Africa and the Middle East, and also promote digital inclusion on the continent through our Orange Digital Center network.
